Red Door, Forevermore
by GreenTieAffair
Summary: (OC) Norah has arrived in Storybrooke on October 24th, 1983, a town that is on no map, but was a place she was compelled to come to. There was something strange happening. Magic was here from her home long ago. Norah's story unfolds between Storybrooke and her home in the Enchanted Forest. She does not recognize any of their faces. Except for one. Rated M for graphic violence.
1. Preface

Once upon a time, over a century before the Evil Queen, Regina, unleashed the dark curse across the Enchanted Forest, but long after peace had been settled upon in first terrible Ogre War: there was a woman who lived in the cottage that was neither well-known or easily found even though it sat near a village not too far from the land's snowy mountains. The woman was from an ordinary family where both her mother and father—now passed some years—were once cabbage farmers who reaped a comfortable life in the business of their crop. Although they were only simple farmers, and on the outside, their daughter, Norah, appeared to be a simple girl, she was, in fact, extraordinary.

Norah did not know just how extraordinary she was, but she did know that she was different than her parents. She was different than the other children in the village and in her adult life she _knew _she was different than any other person she had met. Norah's parents had known, too, but they hadn't loved her any less for it. In fact, they loved her even more so.

But even in her differences from all the other people she had known, she was always lost. Norah had always loved her parents, and she never once doubted their sincerity. Neither had anyone in the village treated her with distaste when she was working the fields or selling cabbages from her cart in the market square. Norah was never met with unkindness, but that was not to say she had never encountered those who had exchanged unkind words. Anytime Norah had encountered an injustice, she did what she could to set things right.

In her kindness and her difference, Norah was still alone. Both her parents passed away and had left her alone. Eventually, the people of the town had gone. The Ogre War had reaped the town of able-bodied boys and girls to fight. The village soon forgot of the cabbage farm and the young woman who had lived there for an unnaturally long time. The village forgot because eventually, there was no one left to remember. Her loneliness became a crevasse across her mind and across their heart. Norah did not know why her life, although she lived it so well, was so numbingly empty.

Norah did not know that all magic came with a price.


	2. Chapter 1: Welcome to Storybrooke

**Chapter 1: Welcome to Storybrooke**

She felt compelled to drive and she drove for hours without growing tired. Of course she was a little hungry along the way and stopped at a biker bar for a burger and a cold beer. In the bar which was just off the highway, some of the patrons—who looked like regulars to her—were all discussing something bizarre that had occurred the day before.

"And he was there, standing on the road with a funny little hat and that baby in his arms," said the red-haired waitress who was leaning over the tall, rickety bar table. The waitress, Anna, did not seem too concerned about the subject she was relating to the leather-clad man who had dark wavy hair and a straight jaw. Neither did he as far as _she _could tell, but it was worth listening to.

_She _could not figure out why she had been so suddenly compelled to get up in the middle of the night and drive all day towards the middle of nowhere in Maine, but _she _could not ignore that these two things were not a coincidence. But there was no time for that. The woman paid for her burger and beer, got back into her car, and continued to drive. Exhaustion finally started to settle in her stomach when she had gone another hour and it was the combination of the heavy meal and the beer that had made her realize the weight of her tiredness. And yet, she continued on until she finally felt that she reached her destination.

Before crossing the town line, the woman stopped her car at the sign that announced what place was before her. She got out her maps and poured over them until she was sure that the place had been correct. When she felt ready enough, she got back into her car and crossed the line with no idea what the town, Storybrooke would bring, but she knew it had something to do with her.

She had not felt the draw of magic in a long time. Longer than she had ever anticipated. Twenty years before this day, there had been pockets of it across the mundane world. Small ripples drew her to places like England, Germany, Egypt, and even down into the Amazon. Weird little towns in the US that were similar to Storybrooke in design—she thought about this as she began to drive around the center of town—but all those places had been easily found on a map.

The town was larger than it appeared and it took her some time to drive all the way around it before she got her bearings. There was a dockyard full of ships, even though none of them looked to be coming or going, and the center of town, where most of the residents seemed to gather, revolved around a clock tower that was stuck on 8:15 even though it was clearly closer to five. The woman had not felt the disturbance until hours after 8:15 the night before, but she knew the clock had something to do with the sudden appearance of this town, Storybrooke.

Eventually, she made her way down to the only inn she found in town that was attached to a place called, Granny's. The place was a diner full of a few people and seemed to be run by an older, stout woman and her tall, thin, dark-haired granddaughter who wore short-shorts and a low cut blouse mid-drift. She asked about a room for the night and possibly longer if she wanted. The old woman did not seem too peculiar when she handed over the old key which had a big brass rectangle that was engraved with an owl. The woman cleared her throat.

"What is so special about this town?" The young woman asked the older one who only went by the name, Granny.

"Well," she said sort of gruffly, "what do you mean?"

"Oh, you know, what sort of touristy things can I find here? Any places I should see?"

Granny shook her head and her eyes, only for a moment, went rather blank.

"Actually, we don't get many tourists. Now that I think of it, you may be the first person in ages who has passed through here. Not that we don't appreciate the business, but there isn't really anything too special about our town."

"Thank you anyway," the young woman said. "But there is something special in every town I visit."

Granny smiled out of kindness and began to walk back towards her diner where her granddaughter, Ruby, could be heard laughing loudly.

"A kind thing of you to say. Now that I think of it, there is a fine antique shop just down the way. Perhaps there you can find something special you might be looking for."

The woman thanked her again, promised she would return for a slice of cherry pie before closing time, and left Granny's diner to seek this shop.

When she found it, she was disappointed with the storefront. It was rather plain with blue wood siding; it was just a run-of-the-mill kind of place called, Mr. Gold Pawnbroker & Antique Dealer. Luckily the lights were on inside even though it was near six and she didn't think anything in this town stayed open very late. The woman sighed and reluctantly entered the red door with the feeling that she might not have found the right town after all. Perhaps it was another ripple, she thought, a ripple that would soon fade into nothing.

A small bell at the top of the door tinkled when she walked in and the smell of the shop was overwhelmingly musty with the mixture of old books and all sorts of woods and resins hanging heavy in the air. It was dimly lit, only made darker by the sun that had already begun to set. There was some rustling coming from a doorway in the back, but the woman paid no mind. Her eyes drifted across the items that crowded every shelf and display case. There were too many things to look at and only one of them amused her, as it had stood out among all the rest of the things. A mobile made of glass unicorns of clear, blue, and a variety of colors. They made her chuckle and somewhere she felt as if they were there ironically.

"Do you find something funny about unicorns?"

For a moment, the woman felt as if all time had ceased to exist. She forced her eyes over to the man she assumed was the proprietor, a task that seemed to take all of her strength to accomplish. Her mouth had gone dry and her stomach heaved, suddenly bereft of any meal and she felt as if she hadn't eaten for days. The tips of her fingers tingled as if they had lost circulation and she was sure if she had taken one step in any direction, her footing would have been lost despite that both her feet had been firmly planted on the shop's dark wooden floor.

"Or perhaps," he said, his dark eyes narrowing briefly at her, but only in the slightest of movements, "it is an item you might be interested in?"

The woman did not respond, and instead, stared at him with both fists clenched at her sides as she tried not to move.

"I do not think I have seen you in town before," he said. "I know just about everyone around her, but I don't think I have ever seen your face."

The woman, who felt like it took an eternity to regain the feeling in her fingers, the sure-footed first step she took towards the counter and the strength to clear her throat to speak.

"No," she said. "I have just arrived today and will be staying a few days. I was looking for a quiet getaway and Storybrooke seemed to be the right place."

He continued to look at her narrowly and leaned heavily on what looked like a cane, but she could not be sure from where she stood.

"You must be Mr. Gold?" She asked.

"Indeed I am," he said.

The woman stepped forward and offered her hand towards him. His hair, long past his ears and more salt and pepper streaked than it was brown, briefly obscured his face as he looked down at her hand with an almost puzzled stare.

"I'm Norah," she said, waiting almost forever with her hand outstretched over the glass display case which was the only case filled with much smaller items than the rest. Mr. Gold, took her hand in his gloved one and shook it.

"Norah," he repeated almost in an octave higher and softer than he had spoken before. She expected him to smile and laugh, but instead he only pressed his lips together and withdrew his hand. "I do hope you enjoy your stay here in Storybrooke. Now if you will excuse me, it is nearly time to close up my shop for the day."

She nodded and exchanged the nicety, finally commenting that she thought the unicorns were only beautiful even though they seemed very odd among all of the older books and other assorted items including an old busted cuckoo clock and wooden windmill. He watched her leave; the bell tinkled again as she exited.

Norah walked calmly as she could back to Granny's where she sat at the counter and asked for that slice of pie she promised to purchase. Feeling in need, she also ordered a hot chocolate to go with it.

Although Granny criticized her for eating the pie so slow, Norah did not care. She did not care because the only thing that mattered was finding out how that town got there and how it was even possible that the well-dressed owner of the pawn shop was even as he was or why he had looked at her the way he did, half lost and half distrustful.

Norah wondered most why he did not recognize her face as she did with his.

When she finally finished her pie, Granny immediately took the plate.

"You might be the slowest pie-eater I've ever seen," she said.

"I'm sorry," Norah replied. "I am just a little tired from my drive, that's all. It has been a long day."

Granny smiled again and put the plate into a gray bin for dirty dishes. "I understand it. So did you find what you were looking for?"

Norah tried to return a smile, but could not find one that would have been genuine.

"Perhaps," she said. "I think I found just the thing."


	3. Chapter 2: On the Brink of War

**Chapter 2: On the Brink of War**

Norah had stopped counting the years soon after the village had been abandoned as a result of the war and never started again even when the village began to populate with travelling folk, searching for somewhere to settle. The only thing she did count was how many times she had tried to take her own life.

In her books of numbers, the most recent entry was four-hundred and forty-eight. This time she had tried fire again and it hadn't hurt as much as the last thirty times she had tried jumping into wild flames to try and end the maddening and vast amounts of time alone. The fire had burned away her hair and her eyelids; it seared her skin and burned away her clothing until there was nothing left. Her throat struggled for air and finally, when she realized it was all a futile gesture, she rolled away and extinguished herself on the forest floor.

For hours she had curled up in the roots and the bramble as her skin knitted back together. Her eyes healed and when she could see well enough, she rose and trudged back stark naked to her cottage in the dark. When she arrived back at her home, her hair had already grown back to the length she had trimmed it to, short like a boy would have—which was for a good reason not related to the fire—and she fumbled around in the dark for her smallclothes, a pair of trousers, her boots, and a shirt. Without lighting any candles to see, she pulled her cloak from the hook on the door, fastened it around her neck, and made her way down to the village.

The tavern there, she couldn't really consider being her old haunt, even though it had been standing just as long as she had been alive. Norah had been warned when the village repopulated once again. A fairy who had appeared to her one night in a tiny blue gown told her that she ought to be careful of how long she appeared among the people in the village. Too many times, the little blue fairy said, and they would start to age. They would notice eventually that Norah did not.

After Norah had seen many of the children age, she decided to change her appearance. She did frequently, cutting her hair shorter and shorter until she posed herself as a young man visiting from a nearby hunting party, and then she would wait again until her hair grew long before she repeated the whole process. Currently, she was Holder, a young man who was in town to sell his leatherwork and continue on into the snowy mountains nearby. The task of creating these stories was no longer easy for Norah to do and already, in her hundred and fifty years living in the place she had grown up in, she was feeling weary of it all. She was tired of being overburdened by the magic she held.

Norah could not be killed.

Only a week after her twenty-eighth birthday, Norah had been trampled to death. Her father carried her broken body into the house after a stampede of horses, wild from the fields beneath the snowy mountains, had charged down the main road. Norah had been perched atop their wooden cart, guiding their horse home after a long day in the market. Her father, Johann, had seen this from the stoop. He ran to her with his arms waving, screaming at the top of his lungs for her to jump off the cart and out of the way, but instead, Norah tried to guide the horse and the cart off the road. Nearly in the ditch, the stampeding herd knocked the cart one way and Norah fell in the opposite direction.

She felt each one of her ribs crushed into her body. Each step the horses took send another bone snapping until it was finally her spine, rendering her motionless. Her father cried out and ran to her after the horses passed through. Their own horse, Nippers, was a little spooked, but still attached to the cart that had only toppled over.

Johann scooped his daughter up and wailed. Norah's mother, Helena, came out of the cottage to see what had brought the ruckus and nearly fainted when her husband dumped their little girl at the doorstep. He could walk no longer and with hot tears pouring from his face, he wiped the blood and grime away from Norah's forehead. The dirt beneath drank the unstoppable pools of blood. Bone could be seen jutting out of her limbs and both her parents were very pale, very confused, and very broken.

No words were spoken. No wishes were uttered, and no prayers to the gods were cried into the heavens. Even though none of these things took place, Norah's eyes snapped open and she filled the air with an inhuman scream that could be heard by birds, beasts, and men for miles. That was when her mother did faint and her father scrambled away in horror. The sight of her was gruesome, but Johann finally got his wits about him and scooped her back up into his arms and carried her mangled body back into the cottage.

There, through her screams of pain, Norah's body put itself back together. When the last of her wounds healed, her parents were overjoyed. They hugged her tightly and cried for days. Norah always had something special about her, they always knew, but it wasn't until that day they knew exactly what had made her as such.

Of course, there were other special things about Norah, too, her senses were stronger than most when she wanted them to be and she was very skilled if she only put her mind to learning the task. But, the one that out ran everything else was that she seemed to be stuck being twenty-eight and therefore, could not die. Although she tried very hard much after her parents had both passed, the lack of any finality to her life was inescapable.

The tavern was called the Joyful Digger, but before that it had been the Feathered Hare. Before that it was only the Hare, and Norah could not remember much farther because those times were the darkest days in which she didn't visit the tavern much at all. Although her exceptional demeanour and the perplexing ambience she gave most rooms, the fairy uttered to her over and over that her gift could not be discovered by any means. Norah insisted to the fairy that her life wasn't a gift, but that it was a curse and she wanted it broken. With a grim smile, the little blue fairy gave her a tiny wooden box, no bigger than a walnut and made her promise not to open it unless someone discovered who she truly was.

To be sure that Norah did not open it any sooner the Blue Fairy sealed the box with magic. Norah kept the box well hidden in the floorboards of the cottage and eventually she resigned that she would never see its contents.

During all the time she had spent in the world, Norah could have told someone—anyone—that she could not die and that each time it appeared she was killed, her body came back together again. Even when she cut off a limb and buried it in the woods—the first time she severed a hand, it took much courage, effort, and pain to see the task through—eventually the wound healed and the appendage grew back. The process was slow, but the fact remained, that no matter how she was mangled, drowned, burned, or broken, she always returned to the way she was: only a week older than twenty-eight. Norah still told no one because the fairy told her that all those in the world have a purpose, and she didn't know when, or even how long that purpose would present itself. Whatever pathway, the fairy told her, that she did decide to take, that her real curse would be perpetual loneliness.

Norah had little for companionship. The lives of her animals were all too brief and she even stopped keeping a horse for travel. Sometimes she found hunters in the forest when she hunted for food and for pelts—Norah had to eat because even though her body did not need the nutrients, the hunger was absolutely maddening—that she sold to keep her cottage in good repair. Once in a while she purchased something nice from various visiting merchants, especially if the items were said to be magical. Norah thought that eventually, in all the time she had existed, something could break the curse of ever-lasting life.

A few days had passed since her last attempt to end her life and when she finally got up the courage to walk down into town, the Digger was already full of locals gathered at their usual tables and Norah's corner was untouched, just as it had been for quite some time. The spot made her a little sadder than usual this evening; Norah knew it was almost time for her to depart from the village for a while, to go on a long hike or travel up to the snowy mountain, something she had not done in many, many years. With her hood up hiding her face from the barkeep—Norah could only look like a young man for so long, eventually someone would see past the short haircut and realize she was a woman—she placed three silvers on the bar and then sat on her stool.

"Evening, Holder."

Norah nodded and then took one of the three mugs of ale the barkeep, Tessa, had set down in front of her. Tessa, Norah thought, was very close to catching on that Holder was not the young man he said he was, but the old maid didn't pay much attention to Holder this evening. In fact, none of the other patrons had. They were solemn and reserved, muttering among themselves and trying to make eye contact with one another, but averted back into their mugs that weren't being refilled as often as they should have.

"Tessa," Norah eventually grunted after her first mug was finished. "What has everyone so quiet?"

The barkeep looked at her with tired brown eyes and no effort of a smile, but it wasn't Tessa who answered her question, it was another man, one Norah did not recognize easily because he was so dishevelled. He was the tailor, Girard, and he had several empty mugs in front of him and he looked as if he were about to slip off his stool.

"I'll tells you whys," he said. "That goddamn _Imp_ is the reason."

Norah took a sip from her second ale and pulled her hood back a little, not all the way, so she could see Girard proper. He was a good man and the furthest thing from a village drunk, but he looked as if that was the only thing he knew.

"He promised...promised us alls we would have peace."

"_Yeah he did_," piped up a man from the back corner.

Someone behind Norah spoke and she turned around to face him, still calmly drinking her beer.

"The Dark One said we would never see another Ogre in our lands, he promised we would be safe and our children would be safe again."

"My son," Girard cried out. "My son is all I have..."

Tessa came around from behind the bar and sat down next to Girard. As he cried out about his boy, Skylar, being taken away to fight, Tessa put her arm around him and let him weep on her shoulder.

The man who was sitting behind Norah motioned for her to join him. Without hesitation, she picked up her remaining mugs of ale and joined him at his table. The Digger was then a little more lively with the discussion about the _Dark One_, a name Norah had not heard too often, but when she did, it was when people repeated it in secluded corners and muttered it under their breaths.

"I too, am just passing through this place. I leave in the morning with a few who are headed to the snowy mountains."

Norah drained her second ale and placed another silver on the table before she started on her third. There was silence between the two of them until Tessa had finally ignored Girard's cries for a moment and replaced the coin with another full mug.

"The Dark One lives in the black castle there," he said, almost impatient with waiting to utter those words. "I and a few others, hunters, guardsmen, and old commanders are headed up to make a deal with him, or to kill him. Whichever keeps us from going to war with the Ogres a second time."

Norah almost asked him right then if she could join them, but she knew at the start it would have been too hard to hide her true identity for much longer and the journey would probably take a week or more to make.

"You could come with us," he offered. "We could always use a younger set of hands. Most of us are tired old men and cannot wield a sword for much longer."

The man's voice, although weary with age, was full of confidence that their plan was the correct thing to do. She could almost hear the glee of success even though he and his group had nowhere near succeeded in doing either deal or death. Norah let the man go on about how his brother was killed in the first Ogre war, something that happened a lot longer ago than she cared to remember, but as he continued to talk, she realized it must have been over thirty years since.

He went on without telling her his name even though he told her his whole life story in the matter of an hour in which Norah had consumed several more beers and was down to one silver left in her pouch.

Deep into the one-sided conversation after Girard had been carried out of the Digger and back to his home because he was too drunk to stand, and keep into the night of heated discussions that grew into vast insults against the Dark One, Ogres, and all matter of things that made the life for normal folk hard, someone new entered the tavern.

At first the newcomer stood in the doorway. Norah noticed him because he, like her, had his hood drawn. As the man across from her talked her ear off about how his wife left him for another man, the newcomer sat down in Girard's spot and put down a silver coin down without any words.

Norah let her eyes drift back to the man in front of her, she was very bored with the details of his life and was very glad that she decided not to join in their planned journey if he was going to be this chatty.

Instead, her eyes drifted back around the tavern. There were a good twenty men still left, huddled together at the long tables and sharing glances after looking intently at the newcomer who was drinking alone at the bar. The hooded figure was the only patron there now, and even Tessa had wandered off to join her new love interest, Tod, who had been nursing the same mug for the last hour. He, too, was staring at the hooded man and whispered something to Tessa that Norah could not quite hear.

"_Oi_," a man nearest the newcomer belted out. "Just who the _'ell_ are you?"

The mysterious hooded man drained his beer, stood up slowly, and with much grace, unclasped his cloak and let it drop to the floor.

"Why," he said, "I am _just _the man you have been looking for." The mysterious man let out an amalgamation of a chuckle and a gleeful squeal. Several men stood up quickly and a few of them drew short blades. The man who had been talking Norah's ear off spilled the rest of his ale down in his lap.

"Sit _down_!" The man ordered, putting his hands up and then down. His words were frightening and angry.

Norah had never seen someone so finely dressed. His trousers were made of soft and sleek black leather. His boots were also made of hide; they were short and the tips of them curled up slightly. The coat he wore was also made from some sort of animal and she thought it might be from snake because it was scaled, but it would have had to have been an enormous black beast in order to get that much material to work with. The sleeves of his coat were almost like pointed tails and his coat's length was almost to his knees.

All in all, he wasn't a big man. His hair was longer than most men Norah had met and it was slightly wavy. The tavern was too dimly lit for her to make out much of his features, but his skin, she was sure of, had a strange quality to it.

"That's better," he said in his strange little voice sounding very pleased.

A few moments passed before the same man from before spoke up again.

"You're not welcome here, Dark One."

"Oh, really? And who might be the one to make me leave? You?" He laughed again; an awful, dreadfully pleased laugh. The Dark One, as Norah was beginning to believe she was seeing, put the tips of his fingers together, he giggled, and then he looked around the room.

Faces were silent, pale, and panicked. The hands of the man across from Norah shook and he looked at her. Norah gave him no expression in return, but she slid the rest of her mug of ale to him. In one last gesture, he knocked it back, stood up, and drew his sword.

"I mean to kill you, _Imp_."

The Dark One spun around and his lips pulled back into a chilling smile. He was a sight to behold.

Norah had seen very few, other than herself, who could be considered magical beings. The fairy that had appeared to her was one, and once she had seen a wolf that behaved rather oddly, but the creature that stood before her had a very distinct magical quality. The neckline of his vest underneath his coat dropped deep, deeper than any shirt Norah had worn in her life and was surely a statement about his appearance. The color of his skin was bizarre. Lantern light still did not do it justice, but he was almost the color of dirty moss with flecks of gold glittering across his face and down his chest. His eyes were two brackish pools, but had a sort of vibrancy that bore into the man who had his sword drawn. This man bled of magic.

"Oh, really," the Dark One said, more as a statement than a serious question.

The man who had been talking to Norah froze, sword pointed out and waiting for a lunge forward from its wielder, but it never came. Instead, the lunge came from the Dark One himself who had put his hands on either side of the blade and impaled himself on it. The Dark One's face contorted from his chilling smile to an angry grin, wild and even more frightening than it was before.

Others in the tavern gasped and Tessa cried out. The Dark One pulled the blade in closer with the scared man still attached to the hilt. Then with one hand, the man's throat was being crushed with one hand, almost a clawed hand, until he choked out his last breath and let go of the sword.

The Dark One smiled and with the sword still through his middle, turned to the rest of the simple folk who had really done him no harm other than harsh words, Norah thought, and yelled.

"Anyone _else_ care to join him?"

Most of them scrambled all at once to the door. Tessa, leaving with Tod, looked angrily towards Norah as she sat, still with her hood up and her last full mug of ale in her hand.

"Aren't you going to do anything, _boy_?" As if there might have been some way Norah could have assisted the man the Dark One had just strangled.

The Imp looked towards Norah and with no great effort, pulled the sword from his belly and let it clatter to the floor.

"Well, come on then, _boy,_" he said, and then laughed again.

Norah took a drink from her mug and thought it best if that was all she did.

He turned to Tessa and said, "Sorry dearie, but it looks like we're closed for the day," and he said it almost with a sort of giddy happiness before he flicked a finger at Tessa and she slid out the door with the rest of the patrons. The Digger's door slammed shut and locked everyone out.

"Well, boy? What are you gonna do about the Dark One now?" The Imp stalked towards her table, careful to step over the man who he had extinguished and then seated himself across from her.

Norah's day hadn't started off that well. She was still having nightmares about the flames that had consumed her days before—like she always did when she tried to end her life—and that morning she had accidentally cut herself while she was chopping vegetables for lunch. The end of her thumb on her right hand had already grown back some hours ago, but it didn't make her day any better.

However, despite the small irritations, the situation before her changed it all a great deal. As the man—who was now dead—had told her about the Dark One and his black castle in the snowy mountains, Norah came up with the plan to go seek him out. Even in the brief time she had discovered him, she knew that if anyone could break her curse, _he _would be the one to do it.

All she had to do was get him to strike a deal.

Norah lowered her hood and drank again from her mug.

"Why, not a _boy _at all!" He shouted. He sounded happy at the discovery and Norah studied him very carefully. She could see much better with her hood down and he sat back in the small tavern chair looking very smug.

"Tell me, dearie, why go the trouble to conceal yourself among all these folk! Something to hide, I think?" And just like before, he laughed again. Norah, for the first time in a long time, felt a chill run down her spine.

"Realize just now, did you? You _are _in the presence of the Dark One, the most feared in all the lands and beyond," he said mockingly, as if it were all some amusing farce.

"What's your name?" Norah asked him.

"_That is my name, dearie!_"

"No, what is your _real _name?"

He grinned.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

"Norah," she said without any hesitation.

"Norah, Norah, Norah..._nope! _Sorry, I don't know anyone named Norah."

"Tell me your name," Norah said with even conviction.

The Dark One looked at her. First he down on her the same way he did with everyone else in the tavern and when Norah did not blink at him, when she did not change her demeanour at all, his expression turned very puzzled. He conjured a mug of ale in front of himself and he drank it. He was silent until the mug of ale was finished. Norah still had not blinked.

"Rumpelstiltskin."

"Will you help me, Rumpelstiltskin?"

His eyes lit up. The brackish color glowed with his excitement.

"Help you?" His giggling was almost endless. "Does it involve...magic?" He twirled his fingers around as he said this to her as if he were going to make something appear, but nothing happened.

"Yes," Norah said. "Yes, it involves magic."

His grin was bearable now, and Norah thought he looked like a pleased child the way his eyes smiled. A pleased, crazed, homicidal child.

"Then you should know, _dearie_. All magic comes with a _price_."

Norah nodded.

"Yes, I am well aware. Will you do it? Will you help me?"

Rumpelstiltskin leaned back in the chair and folded his hands together.

"Yes," he said quietly and with a strange tone. "I will help you, but only if _you _help _me_. If you can make it to my castle in the mountains, _little boy_ Norah, then, _perhaps _we can strike a deal." Then he let out that giggling cry one last time and snapped his fingers.

In a cloud of smoke, Rumpelstiltskin disappeared.

Norah drained her mug in the Joyful Digger one last time. Tessa, not long after the Dark One had disappeared, poked her head back into the tavern when Norah unlocked the door. As the barkeep crept in to survey what had happened to her place of business, Norah put her hood back up and pressed her last silver coin into Tessa's hand.

"Thank you," Norah said. "And I am sorry."

Before Tessa could ask anything of her, Norah was making hurried steps back up the hill out of town and back towards her cottage. Quickly, she lit the candles with little thought towards the small flames and packed a medium rucksack with some dried meats, a half loaf of bread, a light blanket and some other supplies for the road. Lastly, she packed the journal that held her most recent number entry. Before she gathered her keys to lock the cottage, she pulled her dagger from her belt and pried open the floorboard just at the foot of her bed.

Underneath the floor, wrapped up in a rag was the smaller-than-a-walnut box attached to a chain. Norah had purchased the long golden chain ages before from a jewelry merchant. She had looped it through its large hinges and it looked like no more than a strange medallion. Norah tucked it under her shirt, blew out the candles, and locked her cottage. She took a moment at the door. Her father had painted it red when she was little and Norah made sure it stayed as such all these years later.

In one last gesture, she kissed the door, and then ran into the night. Norah ran hard and far towards the snowy mountains. She ran until her legs nearly gave out.


	4. Chapter 3: A Rise in Tourism

Norah woke the next morning with birds singing outside. Light streamed inside the window and warmed the side of her face. The warmth soon forced her awake and she cleaned up quickly and she made her way down to the diner where Ruby, Granny's granddaughter, poured her a cup of coffee and proceeded to wink at a man who had walked in through the front door at the same moment. The man smiled and ran a hand through his short blond hair. He asked for a coffee to go and Ruby called him Dr. Whale.

Trying not to think about the situation, Norah settled in to her stool at the counter and sipped quietly at her coffee. Moments later, as the good-looking man named Dr. Whale was leaving, a small woman with short black hair—only slightly shorter than Norah's—nearly collided with him as she was hurrying in.

"Oh Dr. Whale, I am so, so sorry," the woman said, in a terrible panic. The doctor shook his head, but his coffee was already half on the floor.

"No harm done Mary Margaret. You can bring me another one before you volunteer tonight?"

The black-haired woman nodded and her round, pale face looked apologetic. The doctor left and the woman, Mary Margaret, he called her, sat down next to Norah and ordered a coffee and a muffin to go. When the woman looked over to Norah with little recognition, she cleared her throat.

"I'm sorry to pry, but are you new in town?"

Norah nodded.

"We don't get many visitors, and I feel like I see everyone either here or at the school, but I've never seen you before."

Ruby brought out the coffee and the muffin to go, smiling at Mary Margaret as she did.

"I just got in town last night; I mean to see the sights around here for a few days, maybe longer."

Mary Margaret laughed, "You mean, touring Storybrooke? Our little town is nice, but I don't think it's nice enough to be put on the map." When she chuckled, she snorted a little. "Well, you let me know if you need someone to show you around later. You can call me Mary."

They shook hands gingerly.

"Norah."

Mary smiled. "A nice name, Norah." Then, with her coffee and muffin in hand, the panic returned to her face. "Oh, I am so sorry but I am going to be late to teach. I've been doing this for years and it never stops feeling like it is my first day, it seems," she proclaimed before hurrying out to reach her class or wherever she was going to go. At that moment, Norah didn't care much about what the residents of this town did, or even who they were. For a few minutes, she tried to put it all out of her mind as she finished a few cups of coffee and put some solid food in her stomach.

After a hefty plate of over-easy eggs, four strips of bacon, two pancakes, and a small plate of hash browns—and also the admiration of Granny for putting that much food away as well as a rather gruff and bearded patron that had sat next to her—Norah set out to see what she could find out about the rest of the town.

Most importantly, she had to distract herself from going back into that pawnshop even though it was her greatest desire to throw the front door of the shop back open, tear off the tinkling bell and throw it in the proprietor's face. _His _face, but it was the _wrong_ face. Gold was too plain, too ordinary to be him. Wouldn't he have remembered her? Wouldn't he have recognized her after all these years?

Norah thought that maybe coming to Storybrooke was a mistake, probably a mistake, or perhaps it was all simply a waste of time. Perhaps it was her age getting the best of her and making her see things that she wanted to see.

The instant Norah had left her home she regretted the trip. When she woke up in a grassy field, night was upon the new land and Norah scrambled around in the dark wet grass, searching for the way back, but it was already gone. The grass, although it was spongy and pleasant underneath her, felt empty, barren, and without magic.

All the belongings that had been attached to her were still there. Her dagger, her cloak and her..._no_, she thought. The box, the small walnut box she had been wearing around her neck, the small box that she had poured all of her worries and fears had been lost, probably behind her back to the land she would never return to. The only thing she could think to do was pull her dagger from her belt and plunge it deep into her throat. Norah gurgled and blood bubbled out of her mouth, dripped down her front, and soaked into her leather jerkin, ruining it. When she realized it was futile, and just another number to add in her book that was now gone, Norah removed the knife, put it back in her belt, and cried silently until her vocal chords came back together.

But that was almost a century ago.

Now she was just hoping with all of her-who knows how many years of her being-that somehow home would come to her. Even though she had discovered plenty of places that once held, or even very briefly held magic, she imagined that some day she would find the right place and everything could go back to normal.

Those thoughts were something she had given up on years ago and every visit she made to a murmur of the pulses of magic brought her no joy. She felt nothing for them and every trip became a chore until she started to slip deeper into the mundane world. She ate hamburgers and drank at bars, and sometimes even played the lottery. Norah read books and flew on airplanes, and then when she was bored, she changed her name and moved to a different town.

As Norah gathered her coat and pushed the gloomy thoughts of home out of her head, a man entered with a young boy. The boy looked only about ten or eleven, and the man a little over middle-aged, but what they didn't look like was locals. Each person Norah had met thus far seemed to be caught somewhere far off, distant, as if they were stuck daydreaming about something unobtainable.

This man instead looked around like a mouse in a trap. His eyes shifted every which way and he kept the boy close—Norah assumed it was his son—almost in a protective way. Ruby welcomed them in and asked how they liked the town, but Norah was suddenly no longer interested. She wanted to get out and explore.

Down the street, Norah took a tally of all the shops that ran along the main drag in the opposite direction of Mr. Gold's. Standard Clocks was a shop full almost entirely of wooden cuckoo clocks and she wasn't really sure about the Twine and Net, but she took a left on First Avenue, and all of the shops, even in their cheeky uniqueness, gave Norah no hint that there was any real magic in the town at all.

But yet, as she neared the town's center, the pulses of magical energy became clear, pronounced, and unmistakable. Whatever had come over, however these folk had arrived, great magic brought them to the land. Magic from a curse.

Although Norah had very little experience practicing magic, what she did know was that the kinds of spells that heaved people out of their homes could only come from dark places. _But who_, she wondered. _He would not do such a thing_, Norah thought. _Even if he could have, why would he risk forgetting the reason he did? _Then again, Norah was never one to question his methods.

Like a whip cracking over her head, she realized she was walking the other way again, back towards the shop as if by some unconscious force were guiding her back to it. The senses that had started coming back to her-she tasted things differently, felt them differently, and started getting sensations in her limbs that she hadn't felt in many years-the longer she was in Storybrooke. Crossing the town line had even been a tiny shift in her own inner workings and there was a part of her that wanted to test her own abilities.

Norah had been living nearly three-hundred years between both her home and the mundane world. The inability to die and her rapid regeneration had given way to the strange habit of suicide. Even though the first few attempts after her parents had both died were out of loneliness, the subsequent tries became almost like a game to her, to see just how far her powers had gone. Once, Norah had even successfully cut off her own head. Growing her body back had been an extremely painful process both in the sensation and the length of time and was not something she desired to repeat.

In her books of numbers, she counted because at first she felt that there would be a pinnacle number to reach, something final or significant to tell her that it was the whole purpose of her magic, but even after almost one-thousand tries, it was merely a test to herself to see how high she could go and what sorts of creative ways she could accomplish the task. The last few years had made her adding tries difficult. Norah found that the further she grew away from the time she crossed worlds, the harder it was to heal from death. Her magic was weakening, and although it would never die out, it took her days, sometimes weeks to recover from any sort of major damage.

There would be no time to try and test whether her magic was strong again, there was too much to try and figure out in Storybrooke while she was still undetected by whomever, or whatever had put the town into existence.

First Avenue led Norah up to Franklin Street. The street was much wider than Main where most of the town life took place, but rather than being a hub of foot traffic, it was where Town Hall sat, surrounded by large trees that had already turned orange, red and gold. As Norah walked, avoiding parts of the uneven pavement that could cause her to trip, she popped the collar of her grey coat up to protect her neck from the chilly, biting air. No doubt, snow would probably start to fall soon and exploration of the town would prove to be slower and Norah hated the cold. Rather, she enjoyed the warmer climates of the world and tried to spend as much time as possible in them.

Her walk brought her to the front of Storybrooke's Town Hall and she stood for a while, admiring its enormity and the beautiful trees framing the front trees there were still green and the lawn was impeccable. Just out front, there was a woman pacing back and forth with a mousey-looking man who had graying hair and glasses. The woman was yelling at him and waving her arms around, and then she shooed him away from her.

The woman crossed her arms and looked directly at Norah. She straightened her arms out again at her sides, almost bothered that Norah stood there as if her presence was some great offense. The woman starting her down was dressed in all black with perfect lipstick. Or at least, as far as Norah could tell, it was.

Then, with little hesitation, the woman stormed towards her with suspicion in her dark eyes. When the woman was close, Norah stepped back so as not to be knocked over by her.

"Who are you?" The woman barked at her. Norah felt offended herself.

"Who are you?" Norah replied.

The woman almost spoke, paused, and then said as if it were plain as day, "I'm the mayor. Now who are you and what are you doing here?"

Norah considered giving her a fake name, but Storybrooke was so small that the lie may be quickly noticed. She also did not recognize the woman claiming to be mayor, not in this land, or back home. With reluctance, Norah held out her hand.

"I'm Norah," she said.

But the mayor did not return the gesture and shake her hand. Instead, she crossed her arms and leant forward. She asked very distastefully, "Norah what?"

Already bored of the power struggle, Norah dropped her hands into her coat pockets and faked a smile.

"Just Norah, madam mayor. Norah the tourist seeing this sleepy little town of Storybrooke."

The mayor then brought her face very close to Norah and she whispered.

"Well, Norah the _tourist, _my little town is perfect. So don't go and do anything to screw it up."

After looking Norah over one last time, the mayor stormed off. Norah watched her turn a corner after reaching the intersection and decided she would follow the mayor at a distance.

There was no question as to where the mayor was headed, she was going back the same way from where Norah had come: Granny's. Except when Norah watched the mayor fling the door of the diner open and she marched, Norah suddenly remembered the boy and his father who had entered just before she took her leave.

"_Tourists_," she muttered under her breath. "Tourists that don't belong here."

Trying not to draw any more attention from the mayor than she already had, Norah crept up into the front garden of the diner and positioned herself around the corner between some bare rosebushes and strained to hear what was going on inside. She couldn't discern much other than the boy's name was Owen and the mayor seemed to have taken an interest in him. They talked about pancakes, but whatever was said next, Norah didn't hear at all.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Norah almost fell down into one of the rose bushes she was so frightened, but she broke her fall by grabbing onto the bush itself. Thorns tore into the palm of her left hand and she felt warm blood trickle through her fingers. Face to face with a bearded man in a leather jacket, Norah swallowed hard.

"Do I have to arrest you?" He asked.

The man was much taller than Norah and was rather handsome. He had strong jaw, blue eyes, and though his brown hair wasn't long, it was a little bit wild. Norah knew blood had begun to drip down on her boots and she tucked her fist behind her so he would not notice.

"Arrest me for what?"

He cocked his head to the side and put both hands on his hips.

"Because I'm the sheriff and I feel like it?" He had an accent Norah couldn't quite place. She narrowed her eyes and smiled.

"I don't think you can do that," she said. He folded his arms.

"Alright, you've got me there. But sitting out here around the corner of the diner, it looks like you're trying not to be seen and that makes me suspicious. Do I need to be suspicious?"

Norah felt the blood stop dripping. Instead of answering his question, she untucked her fist and looked at her palm. Blood still covered her hand—there wasn't much of it—and the places the thorns had penetrated were already completely healed.

"You're bleeding," he stated. Norah tucked her hand away quickly so he couldn't see that she was no longer injured.

"Oh, I'm fine, just a scratch," she said. "Is there something illegal about what I'm doing or can I be on my way?"

The sheriff looked tripped up for a moment in his desire to help her with the bleeding and his inquiries as to why she had looked so sneaky around the corner of the diner.

"You know," he said. "I don't recognize you at all. Are you new in town?"

Norah tried not to wipe the blood on her hand off on her jacket so she balled it back into a fist as to avoid the compulsion.

"I'm here for a couple of days, just here for some peace and quiet."

The sheriff looked as if he were about to walk away, but he turned back and bowed his head close to Norah's.

"Just be careful, alright?"

She nodded and the sheriff walked around the corner and into the diner. Norah slinked away as quickly as she could and returned to where her car was parked.

After checking to make sure no one was around, she rummaged through a bag in her trunk and found her dagger.

The dagger was of no real value other than sentiment any longer. What magic it once held was gone long before Norah had crossed worlds. Its hilt was made of a sinister looking black metal, but that was now tarnished and the leather grip had been replaced many times already. The dagger's blade was no longer than seven inches; it was slightly curved and the very tip of it was forked like the tongue of a snake.

Norah took the hilt in one hand and the blade in the other. She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the sharp metal across her palm. Blood oozed down and dripped all over the pavement. Before she could open her eyes, the wound was already closing, disappearing as if it never happened. As she watched it happen, Norah smiled and laughed, astonished at how quickly it had occurred. Almost as if she were back home, the speed in which her body restored itself was as it had been.

Careful not to raise any more suspicion than she already had, she checked the parking lot again, and then she strapped the dagger's sheath behind her back and underneath her shirt. She closed and locked her trunk, and returned to her quest of exploration, heading towards the docks.

Long after the sun had set, Norah sought a place other than Granny's diner to have a little food and somewhere to think. Apprehensive at first because of the name, Norah entered into the Rabbit Hole whose logo on the outside of the building was of a sinister-looking rabbit with his beady eyes slanted ever so slightly.

Inside wasn't much. There was a long bar almost diagonal to a corner; a few pool tables were there looking lonesome and unused; only a few people populated the bar and no one bothered to look at her.

Without hesitation, Norah picked out a stool furthest from the main door and sat down. The bartender offered her a menu, told her that the kitchen was fried food only, and she gladly ordered a basket of cheese sticks and onion rings.

"With ranch, please?" She said. "And a whiskey sour, please?" The bartender, who was an older man, gave a sort of half nod and half shrug and picked up a short glass to mix the drink.

The stool underneath her was uncomfortable and the dagger hilt was already digging into her lower back. She shifted from side to side until it skewed itself. The bartender finished shaking her cocktail, filled the short glass, and garnished it with a lemon.

Norah had two of these before her basket of fried food arrived and nursed the second while she picked at half-cold onion rings and drenched cheese sticks in ranch dressing. She always liked the stuff and remembered when it became popular in the late 60s. Back then she had been knee deep in the mundane culture of the magicless world, going to music fests, relaxing with fluffy-booted friends behind their rose-colored glasses—the world was theirs to love.

Someone sat down beside her and brushed her elbow. Norah didn't look at first. She drained her glass and held the empty vessel out to the bartender.

"You're not driving, are you?"

Norah wiped a hand over her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"No, sheriff," she said. "I don't plan on driving anywhere. Oh, unless you want to arrest me for public intoxication, come back in an hour or two."

The sheriff shifted on his stool and waved to the bartender.

"Don't tempt me, but I'm off duty, nothing interesting happens in this town anyway."

The bartender came over with a pint of pilsner and set it down.

"Everything alright today, Graham?"

The sheriff nodded and the bartender set off to make Norah another.

"Sheriff Graham," Norah said, wiping the remaining crumbs from her fingers onto a red cocktail napkin. "Is that mayor of yours always so...frustrated?"

Sheriff Graham studied her a moment, took a swig of beer, and then studied her again, giving Norah the idea it wasn't something he wanted to talk about.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Norah said, happy to receive her third whiskey sour from the bartender.

"Why have you come to our town?"

"A good question," she replied.

The door to the bar opened and Graham turned. Norah wouldn't have looked if the bar hadn't gone eerily quiet as it did and for good reason. But as soon as the bar door shut behind its newest occupant, everyone went back to their food and their drinks.

Graham turned back to Norah, but instead of replying with some sort of sarcastic comeback, he saw that she _hadn't _gone back to her drink. Instead, Norah was lost in a tumultuous sea of thoughts that were clashing into one another. One hand dropped behind her to feel the bulge of the dagger she had stowed away, and the other blindly sought after her fresh glass.

"Norah?" Sheriff Graham called to her, realizing she was fixated on the man that had stepped into the bar. He couldn't be one to blame her, either, because the man was rather off-putting to anyone in town. There was something that just wasn't quite _right_.

"_Norah_."

She shook herself from the transfixed state and turned back to the bar. After she placed both elbows back on the worn wood of the bar top, she picked up her drink with both hands so that it would not shake.

Graham leaned in close to her and whispered, "Do you know Mr. Gold? Is he the reason you're here?"

Norah had nearly choked on a swallow of syrupy whiskey, but she managed not to cough and hack and spit. The liquid felt like needles when it hit her stomach.

"I guess you could say that," she finally whispered in return.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him walk to a table in a far corner, relying heavily on his cane to aide him, and sat down at a booth. At first she thought he was alone, but there was someone else, another man in the booth who was conversing with him in a voice too faint to hear, but it was at great speed.

"I think you might want to be more careful around him than the mayor. Ms. Mills might be...frustrated, as you put it, but Mr. Gold...he owns this town and a lot of people owe him."

Norah forced herself to look away from the far corner and tried to worry about finishing her drink. She put a couple twenties and a five from her inner coat pocket down in front of her and tried to pretend like Graham was saying the most interesting thing in the world.

"Yeah, I bet he does," she said to him.

"How do you know him?" He asked.

"Oh," said Norah. "We go back a ways, before he came to Storybrooke."

Graham laughed.

"Oh come on, you can't be that old. He's been here as long as I can..."

Before the sheriff could finish his sentence, he looked off, away from Norah, like he had suddenly remembered something he had forgotten. Or perhaps he had forgotten something he had remembered?

"Actually," Graham started, "I can't remember _when _he came here. He's just always..._been_."

Norah decided then that Graham, the bartender, Granny, the mayor—hell—everyone in town that she had encountered at one point or another had come from her land.

"Sheriff," she said. "You asked me why I had come to your town."

"_Mmhmm_," the sheriff said, drinking from his beer.

They had come from her land, but Norah had to figure out _why_ and most importantly, _how_.

"I need to get back home."


End file.
